1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a disease prediction technology, and more particularly to a disease prediction model construction apparatus and method and a disease prediction apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Diabetes is one of the chronic diseases of modern people. The diabetes is diagnosed when an insulin hormone is not properly secreted from a pancreas or does not correctly function to regulate glucose level in blood. Due to the dysfunction in insulin action, glucose within blood is not transferred to cells for use as energy and is accumulated in the blood. The diabetes may cause complications such as hypertension, renal failure, or impaired vision.
An impaired glucose tolerance corresponding to prediabetes is a symptom that occurs in a pre-step of Type 2 diabetes that is a diabetes disease caused by insulin resistance and is a state in which a blood glucose concentration increased due to abnormality of a glucose metabolism. A method of diagnosing impaired glucose tolerance includes an invasive method of collecting blood and measuring blood glucose that changes over time through a glucose tolerance test. However, there are pain and inconvenience of blood collection using a needle, a high risk of infection of a disease, and a large economic burden due to use of consumables such as a body fluid component measurement strip or a needle.
Accordingly, a non-invasive method of diagnosing an impaired glucose tolerance has been studied. In the non-invasive method, a fluorescence spectrum of skin is measured, and the amount of glycated protein advanced glycation end (AGE) product in the skin is estimated for predicting a glucose metabolism disorder. When a state of high concentration glucose is continually maintained, proteins distributed in blood vessels and tissues are glycated due to a non-enzymatic reaction, and the glycated proteins emit fluorescence when irradiated with ultraviolet rays. This means that an increased amount of the fluorescence emitted due to irradiation of the skin with the ultraviolet rays indicates an increase of the glycated protein. Through the increase in the glycated protein, a level of the glucose metabolism disorder is predicted.
For fluorescence spectroscopy, it may be necessary to irradiate skin with ultraviolet rays A (UVA) in a region of 320 nm to 380 nm and measure a fluorescence signal that is emitted from the skin due to the ultraviolet rays. However, when the skin is irradiated with the UVA, photo-aging of skin tissue is promoted, DNA damage and immunosuppression of the skin tissue are caused, and thus, a likelihood of skin cancer is increased.